Arkus joined several soldiers there, gave one of them the lash, and, Lenardo Read, said softly, “My lord says no torture. Lay it on swift and certain.”
Lenardo braced himself for the empathic reaction. He had to watch, nor could he shut out the sound of the lash or Bril’s screams turning from fear to pain.
Yet something distracted his attention. He became aware at the seventh blow that for every crack of the lash, a wail from within the bathhouse rose in concert with Bril’s scream.
Collecting his wits, he listened clearly to another two and then on the last he heard the voice change to the mournful sobbing of a child in pain. He turned, following the sound and then Reading. Instantly his back was aflame, but he could tell himself that it was not his own pain and let it subside The child could not.
He burst into the frigidarium, which was being scrubbed down before being put into operation. If the new lord had the functioning of the bathhouse high on his list of priorities, who dared question his idiosyncrasies?
A number of women had been working there while their children played about the building, but now one of those children was clinging to its mother, sobbing and then screaming when she touched its back. Everyone had stopped working to stare, and the room was awash in bewildered pity.
Knowing immediately what had happened, Lenardo set out to break the child’s focus on Bril. //Child!// he projected at the most intense level.
Despite the pain, the response came clearly, the thrill of first contact with a compatible mind. The child turned huge brown eyes to him, and he smiled reassuringly. //Focus on me, and the pain will go away.//
Tears turned to laughter. The child dropped its clutch on its mother and ran to Lenardo, crying, “Mama, he talks to me! In my head, he talks to me!”
The mother screamed. Hate and terror filled the room as the other women cried, “Reader!” and converged on Lenardo and the child, one of them pulling a knife as she said, “I’ll take care of it, me lord.”
Astonished, Lenardo snatched the child out of their reach. “What’s the matter with you?” he demanded. “Haven’t you been told that Readers are not to be harmed anymore?”
Pounding feet, and Arkus skidded into the room, sword in hand. “What’s going on?”
“This child—a Reader they want to kill it!” And then, “Arkus, why don’t these women know I’m a Reader rather than an Adept?”
The wave of renewed terror made Lenardo wince, and he recalled Helmuth stopping him from revealing himself to the peasants.
Arkus said, “I think you can Read why, my lord. Nobody lied to them. We just didn’t spread the word. Now that you’ve established your authority, it’ll be all right.”
“By the gods,” said Lenardo, “I want that decree carried at once to every reach of the land. Any child who gives sign of Reading ability is to be brought to me unharmed.” He was trembling, clutching the child tightly, his fear communicating itself to...her.
As he realized that it was a little girl he held, he thought in dismay, I should never have touched her! Although the scheduled testing in the empire was done by female Readers for girls and male Readers for boys, it naturally happened that unexpected discoveries were made by Readers of the opposite sex from the children discovered. At home, Lenardo would have avoided seeing the child, certainly never touched her, and sent her to the nearest Academy for girls.
But he was not at home.
Wait. I am at home. This is my home, my land...and I make the laws for it. He turned to the girl’s mother. “No one’s going to hurt your child. She has a precious gift. I’ll help you teach her to use it.”
“I don’t want her, me lord,” the woman answered gasping. “You take her!”
“Take the child, my lord,” said Arkus. “She’s yours anyway. But I’d still advise you to give the mother something for her, before witnesses.”
Lenardo nodded. He had often had to buy little boys from their families for the empire’s Academies. “Where is the child’s father?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” the woman said blankly, and Lenardo Read that what she meant was that she did not know which of a number of men was the father—nor did she care. “What’ll you give me for the girl?”
“A quarter measure of silver, or I will give her back to you to raise, and you will be severely punished if you neglect her or do her harm.”
“Don’t want her poking in my head. She’s yours, me lord.”
“Very good. Arkus, give the woman her money and get her mark witnessed on a paper signing the child over to me.
Arkus covered his surprise with a “Yes, my lord,” but as soon as they had left the room, he asked, “A paper? What do you mean?”
“A legal document,” Lenardo explained. “Can you write, Arkus?”
“No my lord. Helmuth can.”
“Helmuth is out of the city today. I’d better write it.”
As Arkus went off to the well-guarded room where their personal belongings and the treasure Aradia had insisted “went with Zendi” were stored, Lenardo turned his attention to the child in his arms. She was clinging to him like a little monkey, basking in the empathic flow between them. She didn’t question leaving her mother, who had never responded to her growing gift. Lenardo knelt down and tried to set her on her feet.
//It’s all right,// he told her, prying her clutching hands loose from his tunic. //See? You don’t have to touch. What’s your name?//
At first he didn’t think she would respond. Reading abilities often operated sporadically for months before a child gained permanent control. She seemed terribly young and indeed looked like a monkey with her spindly limbs and her huge solemn eyes studying him from a too-thin face. Her hair had been lopped off any which way, apparently to save her mother the trouble of combing it.
He was about to ask her name aloud, when she said, “Julia.”
He smiled approval. //That’s a pretty name. Now, without saying it, try to tell me how old you are.//
//Eight.//
//Very good.//
The girl grinned, revealing that a front tooth was missing. Lenardo was surprised she was that old. She was no bigger than a five-year-old, and he had been guessing six only because of her response.
//Do you know who I am?// he asked.
In the heat of the day, Lenardo was wearing a plain tunic and sandals. Julia put a grubby finger on the dragon’s-head brand on his arm and said, //That is the sign of the Lord of the Land.// She cocked her head, puzzled. //I thought he was old and ugly.//
//I am the new lord,// Lenardo explained. //What we are doing now—talking in our minds—is called Reading. I’m going to teach you to use your abilities, but around other people we must talk out loud. It’s not polite to shut them out.//
“All right,” she said, and held out her arms to be picked up again.
“You can walk,” Lenardo told her. “As your Reading improves, you’ll find you don’t want to touch people. You feel what they’re feeling, like that man’s pain.”
The dark eyes clouded. “Will that always happen?”
“I’ll teach you how to stop it.”
“Good,” she said, idly scratching her head, where Lenardo Read lice.
“That is even easier to stop,” he said. “I don’t know which you need worse, a meal or a bath.”
“Food! Don’t want a bath.”
“You’ll have one anyway,” he told her, taking her out onto the steps and turning her over to Cook. Lenardo